An Eye for an Ass
by MerlinWatsonBridger
Summary: Merling thought it was, stereotypically, the prince who rescued damsels in distress. Not today. Merlin was taking his usual destiny to the extreme with a whole day of rescuing her royal highness. Arthur, for his part, would have to make sure that his manservant never spoke of this to anyone.


Merlin was not well known for his strength, or his ability to fight, or his ability, really, to get things right. But after today, there was no way that Arthur Pendragon could doubt any of those qualities again.

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Merlin and Arthur had been travelling out to a small village on the outskirts of Camelot's lands. It wasn't a big mission, merely a way to see how the people were faring. The job had only needed four of them, but the other two knights had had to stay in the village in order to clear up some trouble over an angry chicken farmer. Thus why it was just Merlin and Arthur trudging back to Camelot.

"Are we there yet?" Merlin called, all intentions on annoying his friend.

"Does it look like we are there yet, Merlin?" Arthur smirked.

"I suppose not, sire." Merlin waited a for second.

"How long till we get there?"

"Merlin! One moment's worth of peace would be _fantastic_ … and if you really must know, about two days." Arthur informed, seemingly not falling prey to Merlin's incessant questions. However, when the manservant didn't retort back with a question, Arthur shot him a quizzical look.

"Not ran out of questions already, have we?" Arthur teased.

"Oh no sire, not at all. I was merely taking a moment of peace. It's actually quite nice; you should try it sometime" Merlin chuckled.

"You never make it easy, do you Merlin?"

"Nah, you'd get bored!" They both continued to trot down the path. They managed to keep up the peace for a whole night and the next day; lively banter- and the knowledge of each other's friendship- was keeping their spirits up. However, it was then when the last day of riding trotted towards them that the tables turned.

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"Dollop head" Merlin called down at Arthur.

"Mnnphh" Was the only reply Merlin got out from the slumbering King. Honestly, when Arthur slept he could rival a dragon; nothing could wake him. Not to mention the fact that he could fall asleep just about anywhere.

"Fine, have it your way!" Merlin said to himself.

He spent the next ten minutes packing away their camp and making sure everything was tied securely on the horses. He was just about to wake Arthur when he heard-

A twig, probably. At least, that was definitely a snap. That's when he noticed the other deafening noise- silence. No birds, no wind, no animals… As though something- someone?- was there.

The camp was placed down in a slight ditch. Slightly muddy, but at least they had the advantage of cover should they need it. Right now it looked like they should take advantage of it.

Deep-toned conversation made its way to Merlin's ears. Of course, the voices could be from perfectly safe people who would smile and wave as they passed, pretending not to wonder why there was two grown men- only one awake- in a muddy ditch smelling faintly of horse dung.

Why was it that Merlin doubted that so much?

"So then I said, you don't kneel and I rip your brain from its skull!" An echo of laughter and the end of a man's speech faintly made its way to Merlin's ears. Pleasant.

This wasn't good. There were only the two of them, so any meeting would end in them being heavily outnumbered. Moving quickly, he scampered over to the still sleeping king.

The strangers- whoever they were- had become too close for Merlin to do any of his usual bright wake up calls, so he placed one hand over the King's mouth and gently shook him awake.

Arthur wasn't used to waking up with his mouth completely covered. He tried to protest, but the hand tightened slightly, and his eyes travelled up the arm to the face of his manservant, eyes narrowed in warning. With a quick flick of his head Merlin indicated to something hostile coming their way. Arthur, immediately understanding, got up without a sound and the two of them scurried over to the edge of the ditch, pressing their backs against the soil in an attempt to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible.

However, unseen though they were, the pair missed out a crucial point…

The horses.

They stood proudly out in the middle of the ditch, plainly visible to the group of umpteen men heading their way.

 _I am a beautiful and untamed mammal-_ one horse thought as it merrily grazed on the grass _\- why, I am as luscious as this grass._

"What's that?" A gruff voice boomed out.

"Crap." Merlin cursed as he realised the horse in plain view, an aggravating sight which made frustrated emotions stirrup.

He swore again- this time using language that made Arthur's eyebrows raise and would have made Gwaine proud- as he took a peep at the owner of the voice. He'd expected some sort of brutish man, and wasn't disappointed.

Merlin had read about ogres. Most were meant to be plump, but the beast before him was marginally leaner. This led him to recall an unfortunate accident he'd read about, involving a mislabelled love potion, in one of the species, which had resulted in a new creature parented by an ogre and a chupacabra, creating a beast to which vile was an understatement. It wasn't of high danger, per say, but the mean, immature personality left it unpredictable and violent, particularly when it had buddies to impress. Hence why Merlin just thanked his damn lucky stars that there were two of them.

Not to mention it was absolutely gruesome in appearance.

Merlin could smell the sharp tang of the distinctive neon pus from behind the rock, while Arthur was wrinkling his nose at another smell released from the rear end. From his brief glimpse, Merlin had seen the patchwork of mangy green and marshy purple flesh on the beast, revealed by the torn excuse for clothes it had attempted. Boils lined its arms like 76 puppies around a cattle bone.

"Don't make a sound." Arthur hushed. Merlin pretended that that was a necessary comment in this situation.

"I smell something… something good" The encouraging phrase boomed like a thunderclap from a tiger's throat.

"There! A horse! What a surprise!" The clearly unsurprised tone didn't help the pair's nerves. Suddenly the ground shook violently, and Arthur, despite his qualms about girly contact, was forced to grab onto Merlin- for support, only- as the ogre-mutant leapt into the ditch with a mighty thud.

"Saaay… Don't horses usually have… RIDERS!" The ogre jumped, malicious glee gracing its disfigured features, turning round to face Arthur and Merlin, causing them to jump slightly. "I know the smell of horses too well… But you two had such an odd smell it gave you away!" The predominantly orange ogre laughed, and the much more green one threw himself down to join the party. Merlin looked pointedly at Arthur.

"They're quite small aren't they?" The green one commented idly.

" _They_ can hear you!" Merlin interrupted, annoyed, resulting in an elbow thump to the ribs from Arthur.

"Ooh… Who do you think you are?" Orange, who had apparently mastered the art of making a question mocking and threatening at the same time- growled.

"I" Arthur announced stepping forward "Am Arthur Pendragon, I demand you give back our horse so that we may continue our journey."

Merlin groaned inwardly.

"Oh, your highness!" The green one smirked and faked a curtsy.

"Most profound apologies, but this horse was found by us, and therefore now belongs to us." Was the simple answer.

"But I-" Arthur tried, before his manservant interrupted.

"By all means, have the horse… Of course, just let us remove the trashy things off it first… Wouldn't want them getting stuck in your throat, now, would we?" Merlin drifted slowly towards the horse. He was, thankfully, very aware of how dim-witted ogres could be, which was clearly an advantage- the ogres seemed to have nothing against his decision as he reached the horse, instead exchanging serious nods.

"I'll just undo this one buckle." Merlin narrated, while subtly indicating the other horse to Arthur with a nod. Only with slight hesitation, Arthur paced backwards from the scene and found their other horse, trying to be as careful as possible.

"Hang on, Highness- where'd you think you're going?" Green, using keen powers of observation, had managed to spot Arthur mounting the other horse.

"Well, I found this horse. By your rules its rightfully mine, no?" Arthur tested without a hint of a smile.

"Ummm.." They hummed in synchrony, their uneducated minds trying to work this one out. However, Arthur wouldn't be there for long enough for them to figure it out.

"Hya!" Merlin spurred the 'ogre's' horse on firmly. He had clambered, unnoticed, onto the horse while Arthur had distracted them. With a triumphant neigh, the horse galloped into action. Both men managed to break into a gallop quicker than the ogres' brains could process what had happened.

Two increasingly agitated ogres were left spluttering in the dust that was kicked up by the powerful hooves. However, slow-minded though they were, they were not to be deterred from dinner easily, and with frighteningly large steps they started to catch up to the two lone horse riders easily.

 _I would rather have stayed with those nice beasts.-_ Arthur's horse thought distastefully- _But hay, I canter race what happened._

The thumping coming from the ogres sprinting made staying on the horse even more of a challenge for both men. Luckily, neither fell off.

"Ready or not, here we come!" A loud ogre voice boomed as a shadow made its way upon them. Probably the most intelligent comment it had made all day.

"Faster!" Arthur yelled hoping that his words would somehow increase the horses' speed.

Needless to say- they didn't.

They rode onwards, bounding over fallen logs, ducking under branches and clinging onto the reins for dear life. Alas, the furious pursuit seemed to be to no avail. The ogres' ground-quaking footsteps only became louder and ever louder.

It was one particularly large thump, from right behind him, that sent Arthur flying from his horse and into the bushes at the side of the path. Merlin cried out Arthur's name as he watched and heard the king fly away from him. Immediately he pulled at his horse's reins, until the pounding of its hooves slowed, at which point it attempted to run over to the bushes and escape from the terrible encounter…

Thankfully, Merlin managed to jump off in time. He went to try to aid Arthur, but before he could even get close, the young king was hoisted up between a very larger set of thumbs and fingers.


End file.
